Current written down tasks of the board are:
--- https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board The purpose of the openSUSE Board is to lead the overall project. The main tasks for members of the board are:
Act as a central point of contact Help resolve conflicts Communicate community interests to SUSE Facilitate communication with all areas of the community Facilitate decision making processes where needed. Initiate discussions about new project wide initiatives
However is this list complete, do certain things need to be added, and is this list the max the Board can do?
Fedora Council equivalent: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/council/
https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules#Good_faith:
Members of the openSUSE board shall act on behalf of all openSUSE contributors in the best interest of the openSUSE project. Although board members may be affiliated with companies or organizations that have an interest in the success of openSUSE, they will not be considered representatives of the companies or organizations with which they are affiliated.
https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Board_election_rules#Good_faith: Members of the openSUSE board shall act on behalf of all openSUSE contributors in the best interest of the openSUSE project. Although board members may be affiliated with companies or organizations that have an interest in the success of openSUSE, they will not be considered representatives of the companies or organizations with which they are affiliated.
Exactly. I think we might be a bit too hooked on a single person's comment on Board matters. I do understand why, but AFAIK we're in violation with any rules if, say, we sign something in the name of the Project as the Board that supports FOSS, and Linux in general. Not to mention that outside of the project will be taken like that anyway ^-^
Following feedback was collected during oSC22. Etherpad by Bernhard M. Wiedemann, updated during board session:
There should be some kind of openSUSE legal entity to handle donations. Be it a German e.V. or gGmbH or under a umbrella org like SPI or SFC. The simpler the better. Low initial and continuous effort on paperwork would be good. The board should drive work towards getting that entity. It does not need to do all of that itself.
The board should work towards a written framework of governance that is agreed on by the openSUSE community via a Helios vote (ideally with >66% of agreement) That framework can delegate certain types of work and decisions directly to the board and decide that certain decisions or changes are voted on via Helios with certain thresholds of participation (e.g. >20%) and agreement (e.g. >50% or 66%) It can also state that other changes are done and decided by the respective maintainers, moderators etc.
The framework should be as simple as possible but as detailed as necessary.
The board could act as a tie-breaker in tricky decisions (but does not need to decide itself - could decide on how to get to a decision)
The board has to interact as an approver for leadership decisions (or delegator) in the name of openSUSE.examples of leadership decisions: 1) Participation at the Open Source Day as an openSUSE Representative 2) Representative and Decision Maker for openSUSE at external Working Groups (like at the Open Mainframe Project) 3) participation and signing something as a community at the FSFE 4) Donations or supporting in general other projects
The board should be an enabler to help people find the right people and resources to get work done for openSUSE.
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